


Be Kind, Rewind

by roguesgallery



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Are the 90s modern or period?, Awkward Flirting, Cinephiles, Don't answer that, F/M, Modern AU, VIdeo Store AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 16:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17728481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguesgallery/pseuds/roguesgallery
Summary: Rey loved Skywalker Video. She loved the smell of stale popcorn and VHS tapes that hadn’t been dusted since the late 80s. She loved the the quirky section titles like “So Bad it’s Good”, “Nuclear Waste Can Do What Now?” and “Bad Girls (Who Don’t Get Punished By The Patriarchy)”.





	Be Kind, Rewind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [accidental_amanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidental_amanda/gifts).



> For the prompt: Set in the 90s, Rey works at a video store. Ben is a cinephile who comes in and they talk about movies. Fluff and banter.
> 
> I was born to write this prompt.
> 
> Thank you to my beta, Ash, and all the Sprinters at The Writing Den.

Rey loved Skywalker Video. She loved the smell of stale popcorn and VHS tapes that hadn’t been dusted since the late 80s. She loved the the quirky section titles like “So Bad it’s Good”, “Nuclear Waste Can Do What Now?” and “Bad Girls (Who Don’t Get Punished By The Patriarchy)”. The last one was Leia’s, she was pretty sure. Leia was mostly a silent partner in her brother’s shop, preferring the chaos of city hall as Mayor Organa, to unalphabetized, randomly categorized movie mayhem.

After two years of stocking shelves and doing her best to guess at Luke’s more arcane categories, Rey had finally arrived. She was getting it, the holy grail - her own recommendation shelf. She had been mentally writing and rewriting her shelf since she started here freshman year. She needed a good balance. A good mix between dramas, action, comedy and the occasional horror for the element of surprise. She also wanted to have some as DVDs, laserdisc and VHS. Luke was devoted to laserdisc, said the quality was amazing and the room for special features almost infinite. Rey had looked up the prices and grimaced.

Today was a glorious day for a second reason. The Matrix had come in and Rey was going to get to watch it approximately a million times before she had to put it on the shelf on Tuesday, aka new release day. One of the biggest perks of working at a video store was getting to watch the new releases before the plebs got their hands on them and scratched them up to shit. She was going to watch Trinity beat up guys and eat stale popcorn until she died or fell asleep, whichever came first. Luke didn’t mind if he found her drooling on the staff couch in the back as long as it wasn’t a school night. Rey tried not to abuse the privilege and reserved it for weekends when Plutt’s hangover promised to be epic. Or for a movie so good it totally transported her out of her shitty everyday life and into another world.

On Tuesday, The Matrix was going on her shelf. And in her year-end review for the school paper. And in her top 10 of 1999. Sure, it was September, but Rey liked to be prepared.

But for now… What to pick, what to pick? The Princess Bride, obviously. Labyrinth. Say Anything, yes, to know Lloyd Dobler was to love Lloyd Dobler. She needed some classics. She grabbed The Lady Eve from Leia’s shelf. Leia was the one who introduced her to the glory that was Barbara Stanwyck, so she couldn’t be too upset. L.A. Confidential - modern classic. She blushed and grabbed Bound. She wasn’t brave enough to put it on her shelf permanently, but it would do until she could replace it with the Wachowski’s killer follow up. Most of the guys here probably thought Rey was a boy’s name anyway. True Romance. Out of Sight, oh god yes. She needed a true action movie though, not one where most the gunfire took place off screen. Hmmm…The Mummy, perfect! Now for the female directors: Virgin Suicides, Near Dark, The Piano and her ultimate comfort movie, A League of Her Own.

The bell on the door chimed as it opened. Rey looked up and kept looking.

He almost had to duck to get through the door, he was so tall. Rey’s heart beat faster.

Ben Solo.

Rey’s upperclassman obsession.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t every girl’s teenage dream. He was tall, but skinny, with large ears that kept peaking out of his shaggy hair. He always wore black and never smiled.

Rey spied on him every day. At first she told herself it was just to see what t-shirt he was wearing. He had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of black tees with old movie posters on them. Some were recognizable: Casablanca, Double Indemnity, Rebel without a Cause. Some Rey had never heard of. She would scribble the title down as subtly as possible and put them on during her shifts: In a Lonely Place, with Bogart and Gloria Grahame, Seven Samurai, her first Kurosawa, The Night of the Hunter with the truly terrifying Robert Mitchum. She loved them all and was dying to talk about them to Ben Solo.

She had never got up the nerve and now he was here,  _in her store!_

She was still staring. Shit! “Can I- Can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah.” He pushed his hair back from his forehead. He was wearing a Rear Window shirt. Rey wanted to yell that she had seen that one, but she focused on placing each film perfectly on the shelf. Chill, Rey, chill. God, he was wearing an insanely cool Hitchcock shirt and she had on an oversized tee advertising The Goonies that had been in a pile of merch from the 80s until Rey liberated it. She was going to die. “Can I have The Matrix?”

Rey’s heart sank. “Um, it’s not out until Tuesday. New movie day, you know?” She pointed to the list of upcoming releases scribbled in Luke’s almost unreadable hand, hanging by the register.

“Yeah, I know, but I’m-”

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t let them out early. It’s um, kind of illegal? And my boss would fire me. Which would suck because I love this job.”

He nodded. “I get that, but I’m-”

“You could watch it with me!” Rey barely, barely kept herself from covering her mouth with both hands. What was she doing? “I was going to watch it after close. We get to watch them early. They come like a week early so we can prep them and… watch them.” Oh god, what was she saying and why couldn’t she stop?

He looked at her strangely. “Yeah, I know, I-”

“There is popcorn!” Oh god. Why wouldn’t she take a hint? He was obviously not interested.

He opened his mouth, paused, pressed his lips together, and said, “Sure.”

“What?”

“Sure. I like popcorn.”

“It's not very good popcorn. Seriously, my boss pops it when he comes in at 3pm and then it just sits there.”

“Sounds great.” Did he just smile at her?!?

“Oh, okay.” Rey grinned so hard she knew she looked like an dork, but couldn’t stop herself. “Close is in,” she looked at her watch, “13 minutes. Um, you could look around?” He nodded and went straight to her shelf.

“Rey?”

“Yes!” He knew her name?!? Oh, he was pointing at her newly minted shelf that said Rey’s Recommendations. And… she was wearing a nametag.

“These are your picks?”

She nodded, pulling out the broom and dustpan from the closet. She swept around him, concentrating on the area by the popcorn. Shit, she should have emptied that first. She rested the broom against the machine and began to stuff two baskets full of the salty, buttery lukewarm goodness. Maybe she could find some expired pop. Luke let her have that too. It wasn’t bad. Just flat.

“L.A. Confidential is good,” Ben offered.

“Yeah.” Rey carefully placed the oldest pop in the front of the cooler and filled the back in with the newest stuff. Yes! Four expired cokes!

Ben was still looking at her picks. And then back at her. He picked up Bound and then put it back. Then Out of Sight. True Romance. She thought she could hear him swallow from the other side of the store. Oh god, did he think she was obsessed with sex? She was, but not anymore than any other 16 year old. At least she thought so. Were The Princess Bride and Labyrinth the only films she picked without sex scenes? And Labyrinth barely counted because of Bowie in those tights! Oh god, he was going to think she was a pervert. Did he think “popcorn” was some kind of code for sex? Because Rey had only kissed Finn before and that was just an experiment to see if Finn was gay. Newsflash, he was! Or just deeply, deeply, uninterested in Rey. Either way, not a stunning recommendation of Rey’s natural talent.

Rey would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about Ben Solo that way, wrapping her arms around his neck, putting her hands in that soft-looking hair, kissing those lips….

“The Mummy, really?”

“What?” Rey shook herself out of her fantasy. “What’s wrong with The Mummy?”

“It does not deserve to share a shelf with Soderberg, that’s for sure.”

“Hey, hey, Mr. Movie Snob, judge each film on it’s own merits. It’s not trying to be the next Sundance hit. It is the spiritual child of Universal Studios’ monster films or the old time serial shorts. It’s fun, it’s scary, it has a kick ass heroine…” Rey trailed off seeing Ben’s sheepish look. “Oh my god, you haven’t seen it!”

“Well, no. I mean, it looked stupid.”

“You are one of those guys who judges other people’s tastes in movies they haven’t even seen! You are the worst!” Ben Solo had no idea what hell he had just unleashed, but Rey was a teenage girl who had been working in a video store for two years. If there was a way to be condescended to by men who thought watching some Scorsese made them a NYT film critic, Rey had experienced it. “Just because something is fun and popular doesn’t make it bad. You know what was popular? Your beloved Hitchcock! Doctor Zhivago! The Graduate! The Best Years of Our Lives, a film about World War II vets readjusting to society made more money than Twister!” Ben opened his mouth, but she was on a roll. “Adjusted for inflation!” She shouted. “And just because a girl likes something doesn’t make it less-”

“You’re right.”

“Say again?

“You are right.”

“Oh.” She deflated.

“I love E.T. A lot. And Jaws.”

Rey crossed her arms. “Liking Spielberg won’t take you out of the Film Snob Club for Men, Ben.”

He pressed his lips together. “I cried at The Lion King.”

“Okay, you aren’t a sociopath. So?”

“I saw Titantic three times. In the theatre.”

She bit back a smile. “Better. What is your favorite movie starring a female lead?”

“Modern or Classic?”

“Both.”

He walked over to the Road Trip section. In between Mad Max and Midnight Run was a copy of It Happened One Night. He handed it to her. She gave a serious nod. Acceptable.

Then he moved back to her shelf and slowly, slowly picked up A League of their Own.

“Bullshit,” she whispered.

Ben screwed up his face and put on a false falsetto, “You’re gonna lose! You’re gonna lose!”

Rey had to laugh. “Okay, I won’t take back your invitation to The Matrix. As long as you admit Trinity is cooler than Neo.”

Ben smiled. A full on smile. Rey felt faint. “Absolutely. I love a girl who can kick ass,” he said it in such an admiring tone that Rey felt it in her toes.

“And I’m putting 10 Things I Hate About You on my shelf,” she said, a warning in her tone.

He put up his hands, placatingly. “How could I argue with Shakespeare?”

Okay, she could totally make out with him now.

Her watch beeped. She took a deep breath and locked the door. “I have to deal with the till. Um, you could wait in the back room.”

He seemed to get the seriousness of the locked door and silently nodded. He grabbed both baskets of popcorn and ducked into the back.

Rey had to recount the till. Twice.

 

* * *

 

The back was a mess, but it was the most comfortable of messes. Despite his love of movies, Luke had something against technology in his home, so he had his laserdisc playing, surround sound having total package home theatre set up in the back room. Sure, the couch was a true 70’s mix of orange and brown and you had to use a box of twizzlers as a footrest, but Rey loved it. It was more home then Plutt’s place. She hoped Ben wouldn’t make fun of it.

He looked completely comfortable, long legs already propped up on the twizzlers, The Matrix’s menu up on the screen. Rey wondered if one conversation (that was mostly a fight) gave her permission to sit right beside him. Probably not. She left one cushion free between them and moved the popcorn up from the floor. She hadn’t even made sure they would be sharing and have an excuse to touch hands. Crap. You would think the amount of romcoms she had watched would make her better at this.

“You can press play now.”

He did. They were both silent as Trinity took down half a dozen cops and jumped tall buildings like Superman. It was awesome. Rey glanced at Ben's enraptured look and smiled. There was nothing better than watching a movie you loved with some who loved it too.

The popcorn was almost done when Trinity and Neo met for the first time. Rey almost snorted out the last of her popcorn when Neo said he had thought Trinity was a guy. “Most guys do,” she mouthed along with the actress.

Neo was getting hauled out of his boring corporate job by the Agents when Ben spoke.

“You knew my name.”

“Shush!”

“When I came in, I didn’t introduce myself, I didn’t give you my card, but you knew my name. But you don’t know-”

“Shush!” Rey could hide behind her total devotion to The Matrix, right? “I don’t want to miss Hugo Weaving’s speech!” Ben quieted, but Rey had shot herself in the foot because the bug in the belly scene was about to happen and she could not deal with that. She grabbed the nearest pillow and hid behind it.

“Rey?” She could hear Ben pause the movie and shift closer. “Are you okay?”

“Fine! Fine!” She sounded fine, right? Only slightly muffled?

He gently pulled the pillow from her face. He looked way too amused.

“You can turn it back on,” she said quietly, embarrassed. He did, but moved his head towards her, covering both of their views of the screen with the oversized pillow.

“I don’t really like this part either,” he whispered. Rey couldn’t breathe. “You knew my name.”

Rey looked down. He was so close that she was staring at his knee where it touched her thigh. “I’ve seen you around. At school.”

“Me too.”

She continued to talk to his knee. “I like your shirts.”

“I like your reviews.”

Rey looked up in shock. “Bullshit! No one reads the school paper! And I wrote a very positive review of The Mummy-”

“I know. I just couldn’t think of anything else to say.” His brown eyes looked so earnest and open. “I like your hair.”

“Oh.” They were really, really close now. She could see the tiny gold specks in his irises. “Um, I like your lips?”

It was official. Rey had no chill, but Ben’s cheeks turned red and it was adorable, so she was going to count it as a win.

He did that thing again where he pressed his lips together like he was putting on lip chap. Rey wondered if he used lip chap. His lips looked really soft. She wondered what they would taste like.

“Why haven’t I seen you in here before? It seems like your kind of place-”

He kissed her. He pressed those soft lips against her, a little too hard, and then pulled back quickly.

“No!” Rey said.

“Oh, no? Shit, I’m sorry, I thought maybe-”

“I meant, no, come back here! I wasn’t ready!”

Ben looked dumbfounded and frozen. Rey felt a burst of confidence. She knelt up, took his face between her hands. He closed his eyes. His eyelashes were so dark. She touched her lips to his, gently. One, twice. His hands circled her waist lightly. Again, they kissed closed mouth, just brushing their lips together. Rey tentatively opened her mouth, taking his bottom lip between hers. His mouth softened, opened, his tongue gently brushing against hers. Rey finally understood why the Hollywood censors hadn’t allowed french kissing on screen for so long. She felt like her spine was liquifying.

Kneeling was getting uncomfortable and he was so tall, maybe she could just… She shuffled closer to him on her knees, but his bent leg was in the way. “Could you, could you sit back?” She whispered. He followed her instruction, pushing himself against the back of the of the couch and straightened his legs. She swung one leg over his and settled in his lap. She was pretty sure he groaned and absolutely sure his eyes got ten times wider. “Is this okay?” He nodded so fast she had to grin. He smiled back shyly and bent his head to kiss her neck. Oh my god, this was why hickies were a thing. It felt fantastic. She squirmed a bit on his lap and he let out a breathy sigh near her ear, which just made her squirm more.

“Rey! Are you still here? My naughty nephew was supposed to be home-” Rey and Ben jumped apart so quickly Rey’s ass ended up on the floor while one foot was still stuck between Ben’s back and the couch.

“What the hell?!? Luke had never looked like an authority figure before, not even at Rey’s job interview. But he looked plenty ready to ground her, fire her AND give her detention right now.

“Uncle Luke?”

“We sent you here to get a movie for family night - not to make out with my best employee!”

“Uncle Luke!?!” Neo was getting his ass handed to him by Morpheus on screen and Rey was feeling kinda violent herself. “But your name is Solo!”

“It’s my dad’s name. I can explain-”

“Benjamin Organa-Solo! You worried your mother! You are coming home right this instant!”

“Uncle Luke, two minutes. Please.”

Luke rolled his eyes, but nodded. “Two.” He put up two fingers. “Two. And bring the laserdisc.”

Rey did not want to have this conversation while on the floor. She pulled her foot loose of Ben, none too gently. “Why didn’t you tell me you were related to my boss?” She hissed.

Ben looked embarrassed. His lips were red too, but that was probably because of her. Focus, Rey, focus! “I couldn’t believe you didn’t know. Everyone knows. My mom is the fricking mayor!”

“Well, I didn’t know.”

“I know! And that was so great. You didn’t know and you still wanted to hang out. And I have liked you for so long-”

“Seriously?”

“Since you moved here. Since you went on that rant in media studies class about how there wasn’t a single female director on the course list.”

“Well, there wasn’t! Not even Jane Campion!”

“I know. I read your article on it. I like Kathryn Bigelow too.”

“Oh? Okay. Um, cool.” They both stood there in silence. Rey grabbed The Matrix laserdisc and shoved it in the cover. She desperately tried to think of something to say. Something witty. Something Barbara Stanwyck or Claudette Colbert would say.

“One minute!” Luke shouted from the store. He had left the door open. Wide open.

“Wanttogotothemovies?” Ben coughed then cleared his throat. “With me, I mean, if you wanted to.”

Rey felt such a rush of relief, it was like dunking her head under water on the hottest day of summer. She gave him a cheeky grin. “Depends.”

Ben nodded solemnly. “On what? Name it.”

“On what movie you pick.” She put a hand on her hip. “Impress me, Film Boy.”

“American Beauty?” He offered. “It has great reviews-”

“Yes.”

“Yes?

“Yes. If we see Guinevere first.”

“Guinevere? I haven’t heard of it.”

“It’s at the indie cinema. Starring Sarah Polley. If I’m going to watch a middle-aged man drool over a teenage girl for two hours, we are seeing a female writer-director’s view of that kind of thing first. Deal?”

He grinned. “Deal.” He stuck out his hand. She shook it firmly. He laughed and tried to cover it up with a cough. “Um, the movie?” Rey looked at the laserdisc in her other hand. Of course. She handed it to him and tried not to burst into flames. He asked her out _and she shook his hand._

Then he darted in and kissed her cheek. “Bye!”

“Bye,” she whispered, touching her cheek. She loved Skywalker Video.

 

THE END

 

**Author's Note:**

> A select filmography:
> 
> [Bound](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115736/Bound)
> 
> [The Lady Eve](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033804/)
> 
> [Out of Sight](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120780/)
> 
> [The Mummy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120616/)
> 
> [It Happened One Night](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025316/)
> 
> [Guinevere](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160338/)


End file.
